Southfield resident and Holocaust survivor Martin Lowenburg shares story in new book

Southfield resident Martin Lowenberg is featured in the book "Living Witnesses: Triumph over Tragedy" by Sylvan Lake resident Monni Must. In the book, which is sold at the Holocaust Museum in Farmington Hills, Lowenberg shares his experiences living in six concentration camps. He is pictured doing his hobby of crafting metal into Judaic objects.
Photo by Monni Must

Southfield resident Martin Lowenberg spent his teenage years living in five different concentration camps after his parents and twin brothers were killed.

Lowenberg was born in Schenklengsfeld, Germany in 1928 -- five years before Adolf Hitler came to power. And that day, Jan. 30, 1933, forever changed Lowenberg's life. Nazis marched along the streets of Lowenberg's hometown to celebrate Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany and burnt down his family's home.

Until he was 8 years old, Lowenberg said his teacher, who was a Hitler admirer, instructed the other boys to beat him after refusing to celebrate Hitler's birthday and would put thumb tacks and nails on his chair.

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"I was physically molested. ... (My teacher) picked me up and put me right on top of the nails," said Lowenberg, 85.

Lowenberg's family was forced to move to a ghetto in Riga, Latvia in 1941 -- deported by cattle car for four days and four nights with only one small backpack for food and their belongings.

"It was very bad there. You could not call it living," said Lowenberg.

After one year living in the ghetto, Lowenberg said he was separated from his family and taken to the newly constructed Kaiserwald concentration camp when he was 15 years old.

"I had to say good-bye to my parents and my twin brothers. I never ever saw them again," he said.

Lowenberg said he later found out his parents and younger brothers Fritz and Kurt were transported to the Auschwitz extermination camp in Poland, where they were killed.

"When they arrived, my parents were immediately taken into the gas chambers," said Lowenberg. "I found that out after visiting a museum in Jerusalem. Their names were in the museum."

He doesn't know what happened to his brothers, who were 9 years old at the time, but is afraid they were taken by Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, who enjoyed doing experiments on twins.

"I only hope he is not the one who put his fingers on my little brothers. I will never know because he killed over 300 twins," he said.

The other concentration camps Lowenberg was taken to were Libau, Hamburg Fuhlsbuettel and Kiel.

"These were all work camps. These were not death camps. But people were killed not by gas and ovens but by shotguns or machine guns," said Lowenberg. "We were in Kiel for three weeks used for slave labor. After three weeks, on May 2, 1945, we were liberated into Malmo, Sweden. We were finally set free."

In Sweden, Lowenberg said he was reunited with his sister Eba, who survived her time spent at the women's concentration camps.

Every Wednesday, Lowenberg shares his story at the Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills and has returned to Germany four times in the last six years to share his story with students there. Most recently, Lowenberg was featured in the book "Living Witnesses: Triumph over Tragedy" by photographer Monni Must of Sylvan Lake, her daughter Sabrina and her assistant Linda Schlesinter.

"A lot of people do not realize what we have endured as Jews during this particular period," said Lowenberg.

Lowenberg said with the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary and the recent Boston Marathon bombing, again he can see innocent victims being subjected to cruelty like he was. He wants to teach others "what can happen when people are subjected to suffering, sometimes even in their own homes."

"It's a shame that we have to harm other people and children. People get hurt for absolutely no reason," he said. "I'm trying to teach how I was abused and how I was tortured as a young boy. Why can't we live in peace?"

Monni Must has worked on this three-volume book for more than two years and interviewed 400 people, including Lowenberg. She said once a month, she would go to another state or country for one week to visit the Holocaust survivors there. Internationally, she traveled to Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Israel, London, France and Canada.

She realized, through writing this book, how small the world really is. One woman she interviewed in Israel looked through her photographs and recognized five Holocaust survivors from Detroit. Another survivor recognized people from Poland and from California who were in a concentration camp with him.

Must said the book was written in memory of her daughter Miya Jo, who lost her life to suicide in 2007 at age 28.

"(The Holocaust) happened more than 75 years ago. I wanted to know that people didn't forget their loved ones. What I found was, not only did they remember their loved ones, but they remembered the last thing they said to them, the way they looked, the way they smelled and what they wore. They remembered so many details. They remembered so much even though they were very young," Must said. "To me, that was essential and showed me that I would remember everything about Miya."

Through writing the book, Must said she learned that there is triumph over tragedy and that "you can have a life after something horrific happens."

FYI

Sylvan Lake resident Monni Must's three-volume book "Living Witnesses: Triumph over Tragedy" features the stories of Holocaust survivors from around the world. The book can be purchased on Livingwitnesses.net, Amazon.com, at the Holocaust Museum at 28123 Orchard Lake Road in Farmington Hills, at Lori Karbal Etal at 560 N. Old Woodward Ave. in Birmingham and at Zieben Mare at 32749 Franklin Road in Franklin. For more information, call 248-977-5140.